


Survivors

by thephilosophersapprentice



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Child Neglect, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Loneliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 03:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12003711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thephilosophersapprentice/pseuds/thephilosophersapprentice
Summary: Tim didn't mean to go back to his parents' house. No, he isn't all right. And he doesn't know when he will be. (A reflection on the violence in the Robin comics, in four steps.)





	Survivors

Tim’s key was already halfway to the lock before his rational side kicked back in and told him he didn’t live here any more.

Guiltily, hoping no one had seen him, he shoved the key (to his Old Gotham apartment) back into his pocket and shuffled down the porch steps, his hands in his pockets.

As usual, no luck. Before Tim could get back to his bike, a SUV turned into the driveway and stopped. The doors opened and three kids got out, rushing to the house past their parents.

Tim couldn’t help staring. It was as if he wasn’t there--as if he’d never even lived here. This family--they could fill the empty and echoing spaces, the stabbing silence. Tim felt a stab of jealousy for a moment, before he remembered he didn’t even know them.

What if he had been someone else? Had a normal life, been part of a large, happy family?

No. This was something he could never have. He had a family, anyway.

“Are you all right?”

In watching the children, he’d forgotten the parents. He started, turning to face them. “Uh, yeah. Just… forgot.”

“Wait,” said the man. “You’re Tim Drake-Wayne.” Tim smiled, uncomfortably. If there was one thing he disliked about being a public figure, it was being recognized, scrutinizing, not having the luxury of being unnoticed.

“Yeah. I used to live here,” he said. “I guess… I wasn’t thinking. I just went back to the old house.” He gestured uncomfortably toward his bike. “I was just going to leave.”

“Right,” the man said, equally uncomfortable. His wife looked as if she wanted to ask him something, but in keeping with social mores, she couldn’t. “While you’re here, maybe you’d like to see the house one last time?” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. Tim half-smiled. Neither of them really wanted that, constrained by the rules of ettiquette.

“No, thanks. It’s just a house, now.”  _ Except it wasn’t _ . He smiled. “It was nice talking to you.” He turned away, walking toward his bike.

It wasn’t his parents’ house any more. A new paint job, new decor. It wouldn’t be the place he remembered. It wouldn’t be empty any more. Scars that he hadn’t left on the walls. Fresh wallpaper over whatever marks he had dared to leave on that house.

The house that never really was his.

Without looking back, he got back on his bike and headed down the long, winding drive.

* * *

 

He almost didn’t notice the car following him until it tried to pass him and he skidded sideways, crashing down into the grass. The driver sped up and kept going, past him. Tim picked himself back up and walked his bike further off the road. He sat down heavily against a fence--the outer fence of the Wayne estate--and pulled out his cell phone, dialing Ives.

“Hey, Timbo. Haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“Yeah,” Tim said, swallowing. His throat was dry. “I’ve been kinda busy.”

“Are you okay?” Ives asked, sounding alarmed. “You don’t sound good.”

“Sorry. Rough day.”

“It sounds like more than that,” Ives said. “Oh God. You aren’t sick, are you?”

“No, I’m not sick,” Tim said.

“We have a pact, Tim,” Ives said. “I don’t try to keep secrets any more. I tell you if my cancer comes back. You don’t keep secrets either.”

Tim swallowed. “You had lukemia. I… I’ve got depression, Ives.”

“How are you treating it?”

Tim rubbed a hand over his face. “Honestly, I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“Just get it treated, Tim. Please.” Silence stretched out between them, filled with kids who they’d known at school--kids who hadn’t made it this far. Victims of gun violence, gang wars, drug overdoses, bad companions, bullies, suicide. Tim ran a hand through his hair.

“How was your day?”

“Average. Yours?”

“I… I wasn’t thinking, and I just drove straight back to my parents’ home. I don’t know how that made me feel.”

“I get that,” Ives said quietly. “Are you okay?”

Tim laughed, humorlessly. “No.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Not really.”

There was a long silence.

“We should get together for lunch sometime,” Ives said.

“Sure,” Tim said.

“I actually have to get back to studying,” Ives said apologetically. “You’ll be okay, though. Right?”

“I’m headed to Bruce’s,” Tim said. “Not going home tonight.” He deliberately left the part about getting driven off the road out.

“Good. I’ll call you back tomorrow.”

“Talk to you later.”

Tim put his phone back in his pocket, picked up his bike, and headed down the drive toward Wayne Manor.

* * *

 

Entering the manor again felt odd, displaced. When he’d first come here, it seemed so quiet, so lonely, bereft of the liveliness he was sure had once come in with Dick, with Jason. Orderly, but sad.

Tim wasn’t cheery like Dick or Jason. He was a sufficient Robin, and nothing more.

Eventually he’d realized that Bruce didn’t think so, but Tim would never be sweet or innocent or funny in the way that Dick could be, and he could never fill up a room or crack a joke like Jason could.

Sometimes, when Dick was there, the manor would warm to the sound of laughter, the return of a boy who had never stopped thinking of the old mansion as home. Tim couldn’t offer that. But he could at least warm the silence, fill the emptiness, in some small way.

When Dick wasn’t home, they were a household of quiet people, but it wasn’t  _ bad _ .

Bruce was home again. Dick had returned to Bludhaven, to a life that would hopefully offer him more stability now.

“Master Timothy? Is that you?”

Alfred appeared at the top of the stairs, peering down at him. Tim smiled, genuinely.

“I’m home,” he said.

* * *

Tim didn’t have nightmares so much, any more.

Or at least, he slept through them and didn’t remember them upon waking.

There was not much point in waking to a dark and empty house, only to cry himself back to sleep alone, after all.

Sometimes, though, he would wake, shattering horror washing over him, as though something evil was prowling just beyond his vision.

Tim rushed to the bathroom and threw up in the sink. He rinsed it down the drain, staring at himself in the mirror--a stranger.

Belatedly, he realized that he could hear Dick stirring in his bedroom. Feet hitting the floor, the door being thrown open--then Dick was in the bathroom, rubbing his shoulders. “Are you okay, Timmy?” Dick asked.

“No,” Tim choked out.

“What’s wrong? Nightmare?”

“Not really.”

“What then?”

“How did we end up here?” Tim asked. “Where do we go from here?” Dick rubbed the small of his back as Tim went on. “So many of the kids I went to school with are dead. Random, senseless acts of violence, pointless shootouts, drug overdoses. And the worst part of it? It wasn’t even bad men hurting kids. It was  _ other kids _ .”

Dick didn’t say anything. He just held Tim close as Tim sobbed.


End file.
